


Appalachian Harmony

by Heavy Henry (HeavyHenry)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A little spooky, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Atmospheric, Dancer Katsuki Yuuri, Ghost Katsuki Yuuri, Hopeful Ending, I like to think so - Freeform, I'm Sorry, Recovery, Spooky yuuri, Suicidal Thoughts, all the dogs are dead, appalachian trail AU, ghost story, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavyHenry/pseuds/Heavy%20Henry
Summary: Newly sober and almost forty, Viktor Nikiforov realizes that he has to make a change. Never a fan of half-measures, he quits his job in corporate law, rents his swanky Manhattan condo to his younger cousin and takes off to hike the Appalachian Trail.Alone on the trail, he hopes to figure out what he wants to do with his life, away from all of the pressures and expectations that he can’t help but internalize. What will he want his life to be like when he returns to it? Will he even be able to return? A mysterious presence on the trail may have other ideas.As Viktor’s journey goes on, the presence becomes clearer and more troubling. Is he being haunted or has he lost the ability to differentiate reality from his dreams? He will return changed, if he returns at all.





	1. I’ll Take my Staff and Travel On. Southern Harmony 158: Pilgrim’s Farewell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cupromantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupromantic/gifts).

> I'm back! 
> 
> Sorry for the long hiatus in posting. As promised, I have been working on a thing (and doing art for other people's things - it's been really fun!). Here's chapter 1 of my Appalachian Trail ghost story. I was privileged to work with the talented [Cupromantic](https://twitter.com/cupromantic?lang=en) on this, so look forward to some glorious art in a future chapter. Also many thanks to [Snarkybreeze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkyBreeze) for keeping me on the straight (hah) and narrow with my grammar and for sharing some of their own Appalachian Trail experience. You should definitely check out their writing if you haven't done so before.
> 
> The other fics in progress have not been abandoned. I look forward to returning to the Highlander AU and Change of Seasons in the near future. Thank you for you patience if you've been following those stories.
> 
> See end notes for more detailed warnings.

“Okay, _darlin’_, I’ll have the ribeye with the mushrooms and, hm. Tell me, precisely how much bacon do y’awll put in your green beans?” 

“Why, jus as much as they need, hunny bunny!” 

“That’s exactly the right amount, then, _ain’t it?_”

“I’m _so_ sorry about him.” Viktor offers an apologetic smile to the waitress. She’s young, blonde, smiling and clean in a wholesome way that Viktor has already come to associate with a certain type of southerner, even though he’s only been here a day. It is hard to describe, but she makes her khaki skirt and polo shirt look formal and coiffed. The angle of her bob is sharp enough to cut glass, and her silky hair reflects the light like some sort of polished wood. He wonders what her name is. Madison, or maybe Avery? 

“Aw, that’s fine, hun. We’re used to all sorts around here.” She flashes a grin at Viktor, a genuine one this time, tired and warm all at once, and he feels a surprising kinship with her. It turns out her actual accent is far more neutral, just a faint softening at the edges of the words, a slight elongation of the vowels. Viktor wonders how she gets her contouring so perfect. 

“Lots of hikers?” Chris asks, dropping the fake southern accent, and Viktor tentatively stops grinding his teeth. 

“Mmhm. In another few months, we’ll start gettin’ the ones that start in Maine. You can always tell whether they’re starting or finishin’, and not just from the time of year. When are y’all setting out?” 

“Oh, _I’m_ not.” Christophe gestures at Viktor. “This one here is the madman. I’m just along to make sure he gets carb-loaded while he can.” 

“Oh yeah? Thru hiking?” 

Viktor nods. 

“All alone?” 

He nods again. 

Maddie just shrugs as if to say, ‘your funeral.’ 

Chris gives him a look that says, ‘I told you so.’ 

“Well then, we better see what we can do about those carbs.” Maddie is back to business, her little carbon-paper pad in her hand. “What’ll you have?” 

She takes Viktor’s order for a combo platter with mac and cheese and fried okra. He tries to shut down the shrieking of his internal calorie alarm, which only intensifies when Chris pipes up. 

“Oh, and can we get some fried green tomatoes?” 

“Y’all want those out first?” 

“Sure.” 

“Alright, and drinks?” 

“I’ll have a Yuengling, and—” 

“Unsweet tea,” Viktor says, dimly aware of how clipped his tone sounds. In his mind, he’s already back in the hotel room, repacking his bag, double checking his equipment. He probably won’t get a lick of sleep tonight, thinking about everything that can, no, _will_ go wrong. 

As “Maddie” collects their menus, Viktor catches a wary look from Christophe. 

“Sorry, should I not—I can change my order.” 

Viktor sighs. The only thing he wants to do less than watch Chris drink a beer is to have a conversation about drinking or not drinking a beer. It has been a year, almost to the day, and he isn’t ready to acknowledge how much he still wants to drink. There are so many sneaky ways for the craving to worm its way into his thoughts that he probably should stop being surprised by now. “No, it’s fine. I’m _usually_ fine, just a little on edge.” 

“Oh, thank god, I can’t look at one more ‘Live, Laugh, Love!’ plaque without at least a little alcohol in the old bloodstream.” He winces. “Sorry.” 

Viktor looks behind him at a chalkboard that reads, ‘#Blessed’, and sips his water. “So, fried green tomatoes?” 

“It’s an iconic movie.” 

“For lesbians.” 

“For shame, Viktor. Unlike you, I can enjoy media that does not perfectly reflect my lived experience.” 

“Are you sure you’re not just enjoying a young Chris O’Donnell?” 

“I’ll leave that to your imagination,” Chris replies with a leer. “Maddie” returns with their drinks. Chris takes a swallow of his beer and makes an appreciative noise. Viktor forces himself to look away from the way the light makes every little bubble sparkle as it crawls up the side of the glass. “So, let’s go over it again,” Chris was saying, pulling his phone from his pocket. “So, you’re estimating Harper’s Ferry by... when? Middle of July?” 

“I hope so. I’ll check in from,” he pulls his notebook out of his backpack and flips through it, “Elkwallow, I guess. That’s about 75 miles out from Harper’s Ferry. You’ve got all the supply boxes, right?” 

Chris rolls his eyes. Viktor had asked this question every day this week, as if he hadn’t packed them all himself and left them lined up in Christophe’s walk-in closet, in order, with detailed color-coded sticky notes atop each one. “I hesitate to say this, because I know how stubborn you get, but you don’t have to do this. If you go out for a week or, hell, a month, and decide that it’s enough, no one will think any less of you.” 

Viktor looks away while a steaming plate of fried is set between them. Maddie gestures at the little plastic tubs of condiments. “Alright, y’all, the pink one’s our remoulade, and this here’s blue cheese. Don’t burn yourself, they’re right out of the fryer.” 

“Thanks.” Viktor summons up a smile for her. He knows that none of his friends understand why he needs to do this. He knows that he may have just wrecking-balled his entire career in corporate counsel, and that he’ll be lucky if the firm merely declines to consider his re-application. Viktor’s profile is high enough that rumors will spread, if they haven’t already, and his sudden departure won’t endear him to future employers. Viktor has never said this aloud, and has barely even admitted it to himself, but he doesn’t think he’ll want to go back. What he will do, once he makes it to Maine, is what he is out here to learn. It’s terrifying. 

Viktor’s entire life had been ruled by plans, schedules, and expectations. He had followed the trail laid out before him, set on the path of success laid out early by his parents—with nothing but good intentions, certainly—rarely making choices, always simply taking the next step, and always being the goddamned best at it. That was what he’d wanted, right? That was what he’d worked for? 

It was maybe five years ago that he had begun to frighten himself. He had been tired. So tired. Viktor’s head had been a noisy place for a while. The neat rows of scars marching up his forearms were a map of the paths he used to travel to get some peace from his chattering mind and the scream that was always itching and clawing at the back of his throat. That urge had gone away in college, replaced by an ever-present thirst, fed by fraternity parties and nights at the bar. It had seemed so normal, so _healthy_. Much better than the transparent brokenness of taking razor blades, needles, matches to your own skin. This was masculine bonding. This was cutting loose. This was a right of passage. 

Somewhere along the way, all of that changed. While everyone else grew up and left their hard-drinking days for nostalgic stories told over civilized dinners prepared out of this week’s CSA selection, documenting every stage of preparation for ruthlessly curated Instagram stories, Viktor had gotten stuck, alone. There was no more fun drinking for Viktor, no more long, damp nights with friends. He would stick, painfully, self-consciously, to a drink or two, fancy wine or expensive whiskey, nursing it all night, counting everyone else’s drinks, making sure he stayed within the norms. Then he would go home to his large plastic bottle of Gordon’s London Dry Gin. He would drink glass after glass, quantities that would have frightened his friends if they’d been there. 

Oh, sure, he’d tried. He would limit himself to nothing but beer, nothing but wine. Once, memorably, nothing but Jagermeister. He had made a point of complaining of a sore throat and had gnawed on herbal cough-drops all day long so that anyone who smelled his breath would think it was just the scent of the ever present lozenges. He’d gotten a cavity for his trouble. 

Once he downloaded an app on his phone, convinced that the problem wasn’t his drinking, but that he was just dehydrated. The little plant kept dying though, because Viktor would look at a glass of water and it would turn his stomach. _There’s no way I can finish that,_ he would think. _There’s just so much of it._ But somehow, the bottle of gin kept magically emptying itself. 

Sometimes, his tricks would work. He would stop for a day, a week, once for a whole month. He would have weeks of moderation. Eventually, he would decide that he deserved a reward, that today had been a bad enough day to warrant a drink. People on diets had cheat days, why couldn’t he? And then Makkachin died. She was old. It wasn’t a surprise, or shouldn’t have been. The holistic vet made house calls (of course she did) and told him that Makka’s pain would only get worse, that treatment wouldn’t improve her quality of life. He knew that it was the right thing to do. Before the vet came for the last time, he chugged half a good bottle of bourbon, weeping into her fur. He held her while she passed on and when the vet left, he finished the bottle. He spent the rest of the night huddled on the floor next to the toilet, vomiting up grief mixed with guilt that he couldn’t even be there for his best friend without drinking. Makka had deserved better than that. 

It’s so obvious now, from the other side, but back then everything was so muddled, so numb. He was exhausted. One night, he had the thought, “I just wish I could be done.” Done with what? He was never quite brave enough to answer that question, but the thought remained, tickling at the back of his mind. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to have. He didn’t want to know how it felt to look at the scars on his arms and wonder what it would feel like if he just went a little bit deeper next time, to look at the tracks in front of an oncoming train and wonder how fast it really would be, to look at a bottle of Tylenol and wonder what it would feel like to destroy his liver once and for all. 

It took four years to get to the breaking point. Viktor had slept through his usual five o’clock alarm, the one that roused him for his workout at the building’s gym. His head pounded and the room spun, and this was nothing new. He usually chugged a glass of gatorade, popped an ibuprofen, and forced himself through it. Sometimes, more and more lately, he chugged the gatorade, popped the ibuprofen, and crawled back into bed. He rarely just slept through the alarm altogether. It was already seven. At least he had time for breakfast. 

He stirred a spoonful of gatorade powder into a glass of vodka, which he drank while he made himself breakfast. Scrambled eggs with a sautée of spinach and tomatoes. He made himself drink a glass of water, which earned him another electrolyte cocktail. He cut his left index finger while chopping the tomatoes. Not because he was drunk, because he wasn’t. He was just tired. He also wasn’t hungover. It had just been a late night at the office, and if he’d had to dip into the bottle of Cutty Sark in his desk drawer a few times, then that was just the price of productivity. 

When Chris knocked on his door at ten, Viktor was on the couch, face buried in cushions that were sticky with snot and tears. 

“Vitya?” 

Viktor didn’t move. Chris had the spare key. He used to feed Makka sometimes. Before. 

“I’m coming in.” 

Viktor listened to the sound of the key in the lock, the sharp rap of wingtips on his Brazilian teak floors. 

“What the fuck?” 

Viktor thought about looking up then, to see what Chris was so upset about, but by the time he heard him clattering around in the kitchen, coughing and turning on the exhaust fan over the stove, he had forgotten to wonder. It was a nice stove. Professional. Six burners, a faucet right there so he didn’t have to lug big pots of water to and from the sink. Stainless steel with a satiny brushed finish. Two ovens. Viktor had always wanted to do a big Thanksgiving feast for his friends, but he had somehow never gotten around to it. The exhaust fan was serious business. 

Right. He had been making eggs. Two hours ago. 

He could hear the water running in the sink. Salvaged Dresden porcelain from a farmhouse somewhere. Viktor wished he could fall asleep again. The sound of Chris’s footsteps echoed inside his skull. Eventually his feet appeared in Viktor’s field of vision. He was wearing the Berlutti Scritto oxfords that Viktor had talked him into buying for himself last Christmas. Viktor hadn’t actually cared very much about Chris’s shoe selection, but he had been very drunk at the time. 

“Are you contagious?” 

“No,” Viktor croaked. 

“Good, I’ve got to be in court tomorrow.” The couch dipped beneath Viktor’s feet. “So, darling, what’s so dire that you can’t be bothered to call dear old Feltzman for a sick day?” 

“I’m not sick.” 

“I beg to differ.” The leather creaked as Chris leaned back. “I believe the Aava pan is also beyond help.” 

Viktor swallowed thickly and waited. The light from the windows stabbed at him, the feeling of ice on sensitive teeth. He tried to close his eyes, but that just made the couch spin. He tucked his feet under Chris’s thigh. It was warm, nice. 

“Come on, darling, what’s wro—” Chris froze, cutting off the sentence. There it was. Viktor let his feet be jostled aside as Chris turned to rummage in the couch cushions. 

Viktor focused on the stitching in the leather. He didn’t want to look, but he could picture Chris, serious, focused, turning the bottle over and over in his hands, maybe glancing at him with— what? Pity? Concern? Disappointment? He should have been worried, things would have to change after this. Instead, all he felt was a wash of relief. It wasn’t a secret anymore. 

“What’s going on, Viktor?” 

“What does it look like?” 

“It looks like you got wasted on bad gin and were too hungover to come to work.” 

“Nope.” He let the “p” pop against the leather. “‘M still drunk.” 

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” Chris shifted again. “Come on, Vitya. Look at me. What happened?” 

“Makkachin…” 

“That was six months ago. Don’t tell me you’ve been doing this for six months.” 

Viktor shook his head. “Longer,” he mumbled into the cushions. 

With an empty thunk, Chris set the bottle on the coffee table. “Let me try an easier question. When did you buy this bottle?” 

Viktor sat up then, and despite the wave of dizziness he felt suddenly clear, almost sober, mentally, at least, if not physically. “I bought it yesterday, on the way to work.” 

He didn’t look away when Chris rubbed at his mouth, as if to hide his disbelief or disappointment. He looked exhausted all of a sudden. “Viktor... Vitya, are you trying to die?” 

“No.” 

“Because if you keep doing this, you will. It won’t be fast and it won’t be pretty. Max’s mother, well, you know.” 

Viktor did. Max, Chris’s fiance, had lost his mother to acute liver failure several years ago, four days after she had washed down most of a bottle of Tylenol with most of a bottle of gin. Max was kind and quiet and enjoyed an annual glass of champagne at New Years, but was otherwise sober as a proverbial judge (Viktor knew quite a few actual judges, and he had enjoyed quite a few glasses of fancy bourbon from bottles with horses on the label hidden in the drawers of fancy desks). Max hadn’t been close to his mother, after a childhood in swanky boarding schools, but had still mourned that she wasn’t here to help them plan the wedding. 

“I don’t want to die,” Viktor finally said. 

“Okay, that’s good, Vitya, that’s really good.” 

That had been Viktor’s last drink. The next day he was back at work, sober, like someone had turned up the brightness on the whole world. The light felt rough, like sandpaper trying to wear down his sharp edges but eventually—and Viktor was never sure if the world changed or if he did—things felt softer. He started to remember what feelings were like. 

Viktor is having a feeling now, as he stands at the head of the trail, pack on his back, shoes laced and then loosened and re-laced. It is a big feeling, almost too complicated for a name. Maybe German has one of those compound words for it. If it exists, Viktor would translate it as ‘the simultaneous excitement and terror and mourning at the end of an old life and the start of a new.’ 

He steps into the woods. 


	2. May: What lengths of distance lie between? Shenandoah Harmony 282: Pennsylvania

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to move, to run, to pull the sleeping bag over his head, to grab his camp knife, anything but to lie there helpless, but when he tries to move his arm, he can’t. He’s trapped in his own rigid body, not awake, not asleep. There is nothing he can do except watch the shadow, watch the stars. It isn’t a bear. It’s a man, Viktor can make out his profile now. There is no way to know how long they stay like that; Viktor, frozen in his tent, afraid even to breathe, the stranger, perfectly still, a deeper shadow than the night. 
> 
> The stranger moves, seeming to finally notice the ten beside him. He lowers his head to peer into the tent and, even though Viktor knows that it is far too dark for the interior of the tent to be visible, he also knows that the stranger sees him, sees _everything_. Viktor wants to look away, to hide his face, but he can’t. The stranger watches him with eyes made of moon. 
> 
> Another sound, a rustle, a hoot of an owl, something, and Viktor is free. He sits up, chest heaving, a scream trying to claw it way from his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we're back. Here's a spoopy chapter, just in time for a spoopy night. There is now a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xYqfjeg63OxgTCkitGon4) for this fic. I hope you like mopey fiddles.

The beginning of his journey is surprisingly civilized: a paved path through a stone arch in a low wall: plaques and photo ops. Christophe insists on documenting the beginning of the trip, and Viktor stands, stiff and impatient, next to the bronze plaque of a hiker. When his friend is satisfied, they set off. Christophe had decided to walk as far as the Amicalola Falls, about a mile in, with Viktor, to see him on his way. Viktor had initially been reluctant, not wanting to prolong the farewell, afraid that he would be tempted to change his mind. Now, though, he’s glad. It’s an odd sort of transitional space as it is, wide and clear, a fairly developed stretch of trail leading to something like 600 steps to the falls, if he remembers the website right. This isn’t even officially the Trail, yet. He has 8 miles to cover before he reaches Springer Mountain and can truly say that he has started. He feels like there is something symbolic about having to climb a whole damn mountain before he can even start his trip. 

He had registered his hike the day before, sat through the Start Well class and everything, writing his name in the little book. Back in New York he’d wasted an hour with the trail name generator that he found on a website, contemplating options like “Fluffy Babe Spoon,” “Sly Corndog,” which he had seriously considered for a moment, and his favorite: “Wet Slap Ape.” In the end, though, he had just written Viktor. 

They walk the steadily ascending trail mostly in silence. It is a bit early for Chris’s usual teasing, apparently too early for there to be much traffic on the trail. They pass one older couple, though, already heading back, binoculars in hand. Chris mutters something about an ‘Early Birder Special,’ and Viktor bites his lip to stifle the laugh. The first mile passes quickly, despite the climb, hastened along by scenery and high spirits. Victor had meticulously planned the trip, of course, but other than a few landmarks that he didn’t want to miss, he’d made a point to avoid looking at too many pictures of the sights along the trail, preferring pleasant surprise to a reality that might not live up to social media curation and instagram filters. 

He needn’t have worried. He hears the falls before they come into view. It had rained, so the stream is full, tumbling in misty cascades down the mountain, fine and lacey like cobwebs. He is breathless by the time they reach the bridge over the falls, but whether it is excitement or exertion is hard to say. 

He runs the last few steps, light despite the heavy pack, trying to gather his breath to laugh, bending over with his hands on his knees as he waits for Christophe to catch up. 

“Oof. Take pity on an old man,” Christophe wheezes as he jogs to join Viktor, draping himself dramatically along the railing. “Keep that pace, and you’ll be in Maine by the Fourth of July.” 

“I’m, what? Two years older than you?” Viktor pats his shoulder encouragingly, a little smug. He feels that he deserves it after all of the hours spent running the steps of his condo in a weighted vest. He rests his forearms on the wooden railing and looks out over the valley. The birders are long gone and the landscape unfurls before them in more shades of green than Viktor has ever seen, fluffy nests of clouds clinging sleepily to the low spots. 

“Yes, and one day I will reveal your dark secret to the world.” 

“Clean living and moisturizer,” Viktor responds piously. 

Christophe snorts. “I can’t _wait_ to see you after three months in the woods.” Christophe elbows him. “I’m still not sure how you plan to survive the week without Instagram.” 

“Oh. That reminds me.” 

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Christophe pulls his phone from his pocket. “What do you think, overlooking the valley?” 

Viktor can feel the bridge of his nose wrinkle and smooths his expression. “Hm, no, too much back lighting, I think. How about this?” He moves to pose in front of the falls, cool mist from the falls making him shiver in his fleece. “Do I look woodsy?” He runs his fingers through his hair and smiles, trying to look confident and rugged and _not_ like someone who had once called his super to remove a silverfish from his bathtub. 

“Darling, all the flannels in the world will not make you a lumberjack. You are doomed to eternal twunkitude.” The waterfall is loud enough that Viktor can’t hear the shutter, so he just holds the smile and tries not to blink. Finally Christophe lowers his phone, “Do you want to see?” 

Usually Viktor would demand to select the picture, the filters, the hashtags. He would agonize over the caption and if it hadn’t reached whatever arbitrary number of likes his brain had seized upon in whatever arbitrary timeframe he had set, he would delete the post and start over. His thumbs twitch at the thought, but he forces himself to look back out over the tapestry of leaves. “No, just pick whichever one makes my forehead look smallest.” 

“Ah, okay, the one with the double chin then. You got it.” 

After several lingering hugs and even more promises that Viktor will be careful and will check in whenever he can, they part ways, Christophe continuing down a series of stairs beside the falls, prime selfie territory, before reaching the still, quiet pool at the bottom, then back to the parking area and the real world. Viktor, meanwhile, continues into the woods, following the bright blue blazes to Springer Mountain. 

These first steps are pleasant, a nice downhill after the climb to the falls, the trail lined with glossy-leafed shrubs sporting clusters of white blossoms. He thinks they might be rhododendrons and makes a note to look them up in his little pocket guidebook. It is shaping up to be a bright, clear day, still cool under the trees. He couldn’t have asked for a better start. 

Viktor reaches the mountaintop by midday, where he briefly turns on his phone and tries to frame the perfect selfie at the summit before finding a nice sunny rock to sit on while he wolfs down a handful of gorp. A bird of prey is circling over the valley and Viktor wonders what it is. 

The rest of the day passes in much the same way, except with a bit more human interaction. He passes a man with a dog and can’t recall anything about the man, but the dog had been gorgeous, some sort of a shepherd mix who had leaned against his leg when he scritched her ears. 

Viktor reaches the shelter well before dark and sets up his tent. He considers sleeping in the shelter, there is plenty of room, which Viktor supposes is one of the advantages of starting on a Wednesday. He is sure that soon enough he will be eager for company and excited not to have to pitch his tent, but tonight, his first night on the trail, he doesn’t want to let go of the solitude. 

He camps a little way from the shelter and has a supper of tortillas topped with rehydrated refried beans, a food item he could not have imagined the existence of before planning this trip, saving one of his precious but heavy apples for dessert. He fills his water bags and washes up as best he can in the stream. Someone, or several someones, had rethought their packing at this point. The area around the shelter is littered with abandoned gear ranging from the expected (mouldering socks and forgotten tent pegs) to the ridiculous (a cast iron skillet and a canned ham). Viktor is well aware of his own tendency to overpack, but he allows himself a moment to scoff, deliberately forgetting the UV water purifier that he’d ordered from REI but had left on his bedside table when Christophe had asked how he planned to charge the thing. 

He considers having a cup of tea, more as an excuse to use his fancy new canister stove, than for any other reason but somehow, by the time he has inflated his Therm-a-rest and spread out his sleeping bag, he can’t convince himself to do anything more ambitious than to crawl inside and pass out. 

The next day passes in much the same way: glorious weather, a spring in his step, friendly folks on the trail. At one point, stopping near a stream, Viktor surprises a whole group of whitetail deer. They freeze at the same moment that Viktor does, watching him intently. They move slowly, almost silently, taking tentative steps away until, by some undetectable signal, they move, dashing off in unison, the bright flashes of their tails disappearing between the trees. 

It is perhaps a week into his journey that things change. Viktor wakes up tired, with a fuzzy feeling in his mouth and a pressure behind his eyes that is instantly familiar but also something that he’d hoped he would never feel again when he stopped drinking. He’d slept poorly. Something had made rustling sounds outside the shelter all night. He’d had company: a young couple just out for a weekend backpacking trip. They’d been in awe of Viktor’s plans and had spent an irritating half hour trying to come up with trail names for him. 

The next morning, while he boils water for his oatmeal and tea, he considers making one up simply to avoid having to repeat the conversation every time he meets someone on the trail. 

It had gotten colder overnight and a fog clings stubbornly to the woods. He finds himself stumbling as he takes to the trail, eyes straining to see the white blazes when everything else is already white. There is nothing but the next mile, the next hill, the next step. Something makes a sharp noise to his left, a squirrel, maybe: they always seem louder than their size warrants, but when he looks, he can’t see anything. For the first time he is keenly aware of his isolation. Anything could be happening in the wider world and Viktor would be none the wiser. A war, a shooting, a terrorist attack, a new supreme court justice. The world could change in a million ways and Viktor wouldn’t learn about it until his next resupply point, if then. Maybe the world has ended: Viktor and the trail the last remnants of humanity. 

By noon the fog has turned to rain. Viktor is wet and miserable and every scrap of his energy goes to putting one foot in front of the other. The trail has turned treacherous as it climbs the next mountain and Viktor knows that he is risking twisted ankles and worse with each step. It would be much smarter to stop, rest, find a place to shelter, but something spurs him on. 

A sound, a breath, somewhere close, practically in his ear, startles him and he slips, just a little, tripping over his toes and stumbling a couple of steps, catching himself as the other hiker shoulders past him without a word. Wrapped in his own misery, raging silently at the weather, Viktor hadn’t even noticed the man approaching. Viktor turns to watch as the other man continues down the hill. He walks lightly, sure-footed, like he doesn’t notice either the rain or the terrain. Sounds are strange in the rain, things that should be near inaudible are amplified but those that should be sharp and clear are softened. Viktor had heard the sharp _huff_ of the hiker’s breath as he passed, but he can hear no other sound of his passage, no receding footsteps, no rustle of cloth. 

He is moving fast, too fast for the trail and the conditions, at least. He has no pack, just a plaid flannel shirt tucked into khaki shorts. He has brown leather hiking boots, dark hair, and clothes months, no, decades out of season. Viktor sniffs. _Hipsters_. He’s surely a day-hiker, but Viktor is relatively certain that the nearest access point is more than a day away. He wonders if he should offer to help. The guy really isn’t dressed for the weather, but what could Viktor do? One of his work mantras comes to mind. ‘Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency for me.’ Viktor can feel the tension of suppressed anger in his chest, and he wants nothing more than to forget about this asshole, but something feels _wrong_. He turns, with a “Hey!” 

He is alone except for the crow that scolds him from the branches of a nearby sycamore. He suddenly wonders whether it even happened at all. 

The rain clears by that evening, but the shelter is predictably crowded, a raucous group setting up stoves and sleeping bags, slinging packs out of the reach of bears, chattering happily as they pool their dehydrated resources for dinner. The trees around the shelter are festooned with damp laundry, everyone’s fleeces and ponchos hung out to dry. 

Viktor wants no part of it. His encounter earlier had left him unsettled in a way he can’t quite name and he knows that he will be poor company: snappish and distracted at best. He forces himself onward even though his legs burn and his boots squelch. Finally, a couple of miles past the shelter, he spots a clear area beyond the trees to his left. He aims toward it, following what appears to be a deer trail, only to find a somewhat established campsite, clear and flat with the remnants of a fire ring and easy access to the creek. By the time he has his tent pitched, he is too tired for anything more than a spoonful of peanut butter before crawling into his sleeping bag. He can see the overcast sky through the little mesh window of the tent. He can’t summon the energy to set up the rain fly. He’ll just have to take his chances with the weather. 

Viktor wakes in deep pre-dawn darkness, pulse roaring in his ears, unsure of what had roused him. Outside the tent, he can see the night sky spreading sparkling, laced with the clawed branches of pines. The weather must have passed. With the hush of an inhale, a shadow passes in front of the stars. Viktor stops breathing, panic gripping his limbs, a bear: it has to be. 

He wants to move, to run, to pull the sleeping bag over his head, to grab his camp knife, anything but to lie there helpless, but when he tries to move his arm, he can’t. He’s trapped in his own rigid body, not awake, not asleep. There is nothing he can do except watch the shadow, watch the stars. It isn’t a bear. It’s a man, Viktor can make out his profile now. There is no way to know how long they stay like that; Viktor, frozen in his tent, afraid even to breathe, the stranger, perfectly still, a deeper shadow than the night. 

The stranger moves, seeming to finally notice the ten beside him. He lowers his head to peer into the tent and, even though Viktor knows that it is far too dark for the interior of the tent to be visible, he also knows that the stranger sees him, sees _everything_. Viktor wants to look away, to hide his face, but he can’t. The stranger watches him with eyes made of moon. 

Another sound, a rustle, a hoot of an owl, something, and Viktor is free. He sits up, chest heaving, a scream trying to claw it way from his throat. 

Stupid sleep paralysis. When he was drinking, he’d hardly dreamt, just the occasional work-related stress dream, but sobriety seemed to have unlocked something in his mind. He’s had more night terrors since he stoppe, and sometimes they are accompanied by the paralysis: Viktor screaming, crying in his mind, struggling to force his sleeping body to make a sound, only to wake himself up with an undignified sort of mewling. 

As far as dreams go, this one hadn’t been so bad. ‘Spooky dude watching you’ is pretty light fare as far as nightmares are concerned. He flops down, looking up through the vent. _Huh, that’s funny,_ he thinks, _I was right about the stars._

It happens again. Viktor had taken a brief detour down a side trail to see an overlook that he marked on his map, and it slowed him down. He is hurrying, hoping to get to the next campsite before dark. This time he sees the hiker coming, at least. He’s a young guy, or younger than Viktor, at least, dark hair, dark eyes, good thighs, no pack, walking quickly down the trail. Viktor steps to the side to let him pass. He chirps out a greeting, but gets no response. The hiker just continues past him and on down the trail, eyes straight ahead, zombielike. Viktor wonders for a moment if that is normal. Maybe, by Maine, he’ll be even more out of it. _Wait, was that the same guy?_ Viktor turns to look but he is already gone, leaving no trace behind him. Viktor watches until the evening chorus of frogs and bugs starts up again. That’s funny. He hadn’t noticed it stopping. 

There are other times, too: a shadow glimpsed from the corner of his eye, a shape in the distant fog. Whenever he passes someone on the trail, he finds himself checking for a pack, noting their clothes, greeting them loudly. He stops camping away from the shelters and lets himself be drawn, mothlike, to their warmth and the groups of hikers that congregate there. When he sees a figure in the distance, he looks away. When he passes a dark haired hiker on the trail, he doesn’t look back. Like Lot fleeing his doomed city, he is afraid of what will happen if he turns around. 

One day, Viktor wakes from a night of poor sleep with eyes itchy and swollen and a pounding behind his eyebrows that promises a migraine by the end of the day. On top of that, he must have laced his shoes funny the day before, because now he has a blister on his right heel. It makes every step just painful enough that over the course of the day it becomes an excruciating torment. He doesn’t even make it to the shelter he’d meant to camp at, stumbling instead into the first likely looking open spot and crashing. 

In the morning he feels even worse, after another night of strange dreams. They weren’t frightening, just odd. He’d been in a bar with a cheerful young person. They were flipping through binders and insisting that he choose a song. He had finally relented, after several shots of tequila. “Jolene,” if he remembered correctly, but it might have been “Islands in the Stream.” Viktor is quite sure he’d never met this individual before and he is equally sure that the last time Viktor had been in a bar, it had not been nearly so much work to get him to humiliate himself, especially if both Dolly Parton and tequila were involved. Like all drinking dreams, though, he wakes panicked, sure that he has relapsed, positive that he has just thrown it all away again. 

Breakfast helps a bit and by the time he finishes his second spoonful of peanut butter, he has regained a measure of clarity. There’s just one small problem. In his quest for a campsite, Viktor had apparently wandered farther from the trail than he realized. To make matters worse, another fog has rolled in. It presses in on him, muffling the world in bright obscurity. He can’t be far from the trail, but every tree looks the same. Someone once told him that moss grows on the north side of trees. A cursory inspection of the nearby trees reveals that this may be true, but moss apparently also grows on the south, east, and west sides. He spins himself in circles trying to find his way to the trail only to realize that even if he can find it, between last night’s exhaustion and migraine aura, he has no clear memory of which side of the trail he’d camped on. 

“Hey.” 

Viktor’s head snaps up from his panicked consultation of the topo map. It’s a young man: no pack, plaid shirt, khaki shorts, good thighs, just at the edge of visibility in the fog. 

“Are you coming?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading and for leaving feedback. Comments give me life, and I can guarantee that I will eventually respond awkwardly to each and every one. You can also yell at me on the Twitter: @heavyhenry2
> 
> I can't think of any special warnings for this chapter, but if you read it and something hits your squick points, let me know.


	3. June: I want a sober mind, an all-sustaining eye. Denson 455: Soar Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, it's Yuuri!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm deviating from my schedule, because tomorrow is gonna be a heckuva day. My pain is your early update.

“I wondered if I would see you again.” 

The shadow lingers at the edge of the campsite, accompanied by the strange silence that seems to follow it. Viktor isn’t sure how he knows that it is watching him, but he is certain that it is. The hiker usually appears like this, mostly at the edge of his vision, a glimpse of a figure that is gone as soon as he looks at it directly. It has never come closer. It stops across a clearing, where the trail bends out of sight. It hadn’t spoken again and had disappeared again as soon as Viktor was back on the trail, heading north. 

A week has passed since that day and he has seen the hiker almost daily, only ever at dawn and dusk. Viktor isn’t sure whether he is comforted or concerned by this. It either makes it more likely that the hiker, whatever he is, is real or more likely that Viktor’s understanding of reality is slipping. Viktor is still on the fence about whether he prefers definitive proof of ghosts or definitive proof that he is hallucinating. 

“Would you like some coffee?” Viktor asks because it seems rude not to. Do ghosts drink coffee? “It’s instant; tastes like shit, of course.” 

There’s a rustle, loud in the silence. Viktor almost tumbles off the log he is perched on. The hiker is next to him, close enough to touch. His left hand dangles, right at Viktor’s eye-level. He is clenching and flexing his fingers, like he is nervous. He wears a digital watch, one of the old Casio ones, but it is broken, the crystal cracked, algae growing on the screen. The hiker flickers for a moment, then sits or, rather, _is sitting_ without going through any of the usual intermediate postures. 

Viktor clenches his hands together to hide their shaking and tries to make himself breath normally. What else can he do? He risks a look over, but the hiker is just staring at the stove, gaze locked on the blue flame that can just be made out in the bright morning sun. He looks a bit younger than Viktor, with a softness in his cheeks and the line of his jaw. He reaches up and tucked a lock of dark hair behind his ear. The watch reads 7:06, which is correct. He freezes then, seeming to noticing Viktor’s stare. 

“Um,” he says. 

“Coffee?” Viktor offers, just barely managing not to pour boiling water on his own hand. 

“I’d better not. I’m jumpy enough without it.” The hiker stops himself then, awkwardly, like he’s said something he shouldn’t have. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” Without seeming to move, he is walking quickly away through the woods. 

Viktor closes his mouth, the flavor of “wait” still on his lips as the birds take up their song again. 

“You’re like a deer,” Viktor blurts out the next time he sees the hiker, standing silent between the trees, poised to disappear into the twilight, watching the trail with large brown eyes. 

“In what way?” 

“I only see you at the edges of the day.” 

The hiker smiles. “The word is crepuscular.” 

Viktor wrinkles his nose. 

“It means most active at dawn and dusk. Like deer.” 

“It sounds like a skin condition. Like, ‘you should see a doctor to get that crepuscule drained.’” 

“I guess it does.” The sun is fading fast. With a noise like running water, a small herd of deer runs past him, flowing around Viktor like a rock in a stream, footfalls near silent. When the last flash of white tails is gone, he looks back, blinking away sudden tears, to where his companion had stood, only to find himself alone again. 

Viktor hadn’t expected to feel so much, but he finds that his emotions float closer to the surface the longer he travels. He finds himself laughing, alone in the woods, as he watches a frog, still clumsy and sluggish in the morning cold, try to leap away from him. When he reaches the crest of a ridge, the top of a mountain, he can’t stop himself from shouting his triumph to the valleys around him. He dips his fingers into every creek and smiles at every beetle. Deer always make him cry. 

“What’s your name?” Viktor asks, the next time the hiker appears. 

“Yuuri.” He is sitting with his back to the sunrise, the rays picking out the coppery strands of his hair. He seems particularly real at that moment, and Viktor wants to reach out, to touch him, just to make sure. “What’s yours?” 

“Viktor. It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

Yuuri smiles, a little sadly. 

“Have you been on the trail long?” Viktor asks. He’s been thinking about the phrasing carefully. He assumes that Yuuri knows what he is, but it seems somehow gauche to say it out loud. 

“I don’t know. Time doesn’t mean much these days. What year is it?” 

“2019.” 

“Really? Huh.” Yuuri looks away. “It’s been a long time, then. Thirty years. May 1, 1989.” 

“I left on May first, too. Do you think that matters?” 

“Matters to what?” 

“Can everyone see you, I mean?” 

“Sometimes, maybe? I usually stay away from people.” 

“You talked to me.” 

“You were lost.” 

“I can’t be the only person who’s ever gotten lost.” 

“You got lost in a particularly stupid way.” Viktor isn’t sure if he’s being haunted or roasted, but Yuuri goes on, “I don’t know. I don’t think there are strict rules for this. Sometimes people see me, sometimes I’m right there and they don’t. I don’t think I always look like this.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Yuuri doesn’t answer, at least not that question. “I think you see me because you wanted to see me.” 

“Are you saying that I made you up?” 

Yuuri looks at him closely. “You’d be worried if you did, wouldn’t you? I’m real, I think. I had a life. Sometimes it’s hard to remember it, but right now it’s not so bad. I had a family and a dog and a favorite food and everything.” 

“That’s probably what you would say if I hallucinated you.” 

“I’d better go.” 

Viktor looks at where Yuuri had just been sitting. Maybe Yuuri is right, because if Viktor had made someone like him up, Yuuri wouldn’t ever have to leave. 

He sees Yuuri again at the road. The shadows are just starting to get low, and Viktor is looking forward to a rest night at the Holiday Motor Lodge, a mile off the trail. He looks different, severe, maybe, but his eyes are hidden by the glare of a street light on his glasses. He keeps his distance, hovering near the tree line. 

“You’re going into town, aren’t you?” Viktor can’t place the emotion in his voice. 

“Well, yes.” He sniffs theatrically at his armpit. “I need a shower and a washing machine. What can I say, I’m an altruist.” 

“You’re leaving me.” 

“I - what?” 

“You’re leaving me.” 

_Oh_. “You can’t leave the Trail, can you?” Viktor feels stupid. Yuuri has said there aren’t rules, but that is probably just because this one is so obvious. He’s never seen Yuuri further from the Trail than a shelter or a campsite. He starts to protest, to say that he will be back soon, but before he can marshall an argument, Yuuri is gone. 

It’s only a mile into town, what little of it there is. The prospect of a shower wins out over food and he opts to check into the motel before gorging himself at the Dairy Queen. The Motor Lodge is the first mail drop that Viktor had planned, and after a brief moment of panic when the desk clerk had to call the manager to help her find the box, he is heading up a carpeted staircase that hasn’t been updated since, well, probably since Yuuri had started his hike, Viktor thinks. 

He uses the entire tiny bottle of hotel shampoo and conditioner in one shower, lathering, rinsing and repeating as many times as the hot water supply can withstand. He is grateful for the steam on the mirror when he gets out, not quite ready to face his reflection. 

At the Dairy Queen, he eats two hamburgers at the picnic tables while moths flutter around the orangey bulbs. He has to squint to see the stars and he keeps getting a whiff of the summer dumpster behind the building. He orders the largest sundae with both strawberry and hot fudge and brings it back to his hotel room. He eats the whole thing and falls asleep watching reruns of King of the Hill. 

He wakes up at around three, thirsty and with lips still sticky from ice cream. He chugs a glass of water at the bathroom sink and avoids his own eyes in the mirror while he brushes his teeth. He tells himself it is just because no one has ever looked good under fluorescent lights. The truth is that he’s afraid he won’t recognize himself. 

When Viktor returns to the trail, pack heavy with new food, new socks on his feet and fresh shorts on his ass, he is surprised to find that the overriding emotion is relief. Noises that had once been commonplace: air-conditioning, plumbing, a TV in the next room, had seemed a little too loud, the lights a little too bright. He can’t stop himself from searching the treeline, looking for Yuuri’s now familiar silhouette. In the end, he returns to the trail alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading: as always, I live for comments, so don't be shy! Also, thank you to my German readers who have generously contemplated words for the terror/eagerness of new things.


	4. July:  All will come to desolation, unless thou return again. Denson 335: Return Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I treasure every one of your comments and hope that this little ghost story continues to be worth your time. There is a warning for this chapter, see end notes for details.

“What happens if you try to go somewhere else?” Viktor asks when Yuuri returns, slinking, aloof, around the edge of his campsite at night, staying just out of reach of easy conversation. It reminds him of his cousin’s cat, the way she would punish him for leaving home. Viktor wonders what kind of sacrifice could get him back into a ghost’s good graces, but it turns out that his punishment doesn’t last long. Yuuri comes close, and they sit together on the ground a little way from the shelter. 

Viktor has long since stopped worrying about what the other hikers think. He had verified that he seems to be the only one who can see Yuuri, but after two months on the Trail, he has learned that a certain level of eccentricity is encouraged. Viktor likely already has a reputation as the guy who talks to himself, and he doesn’t particularly care to change it. 

“Nothing,” Yuuri replies, toying with a leaf. Viktor can’t help but watch the way his fingers move. They seem strong, callused at the fingertips. He wonders if Yuuri played guitar, or, well, if he used to. 

“Then why don’t you go somewhere else?” 

“You don’t understand.” 

“Oh course I don’t.” 

“Nothing _happens_, I just can’t leave. I reach a point where I can’t go farther. That’s all.” 

“Oh.” Yuuri seems more _there_ than usual tonight, so Viktor presses on with his questions. “What kind of dog did you have?” 

That makes Yuuri smile, just a little bit. “He’s a poodle, a little one. Brown.” 

“What was his name?” Viktor’s voice is thick. 

“It’s very nerdy. We call him Nikchan. It’s, like, a diminutive. His full name was Nikola Tesla. Silly, I know.” Yuuri looks down. “I- I guess he’s dead now, too. My parents were taking care of him for me. He was pretty young when I left, but I guess dogs can’t live forever, right?” 

“Right.” Viktor looks away, like Yuuri will be able to read his shame in his face. “I had a poodle too, actually. A brown one, but a standard. She would have loved this.” 

“What happened?” 

“Dogs can’t live forever, right? She was put down last year. Cancer.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Viktor shrugs. 

It becomes a routine. Yuuri appears soon after Viktor wakes, and would walk with him for his first steps on the trail. He points out things, mushrooms that he claims are edible (some delicious, some ‘insipid.’ Viktor leaves them all alone), berries, birds. It is rare that Viktor can stump him. Sometimes Yuuri doesn’t know the names of things, but he knows where they sleep and what they eat. He tells Viktor about power struggles among the chipmunks and the wars between the crows and the chickadees. Before long, Viktor knows Yuuri’s favorite food (katsudon), his favorite color (blue), and that he had taught Chemistry at a high school in Nashville. 

Viktor doesn’t say much about himself. What is there to say? He doesn’t even know who he is anymore. His identity is wrapped up in his job, in his success, even in his drinking, secret though it was. Behind all of that, is there even a real Viktor? 

July is passing quickly, the cool fogs of spring long since left behind for a high summer of berries and birdsong and grasshoppers that swarm into the air with a sharp clack every time he disturbs them from their sunbathing. Before he knows it, he will be at the halfway point, or close enough. At the outset, he wasn’t been able to picture himself making it this far. Despite the months of planning, of training, walking laps of Central Park in a weighted vest, running the stairs of his condo, he’s never really been able to picture himself here, at this point: comfortable sleeping on the ground, spending days without speaking to another (living) human, shitting in cat-holes dug with his bright orange plastic trowel. He even likes the beard, likes the simplicity of wearing the same worn shorts and increasingly ratty t-shirt every day. He likes the looks he gets from the other hikers: the instant camaraderie with the other through-hikers, the looks of awe from those just out for a day or a week. 

At home, Viktor is treated with respect because of his clothes, his car, his job. He has worked hard, he can accept credit for that much, but he hasn’t ever really pushed himself. His success has been a clear path laid before him. The only thing he had to do was to follow it. This is the first time that he has been brave enough to try to find his own way. Yes, certainly, he is not the first to choose this specific trail, but there is still power in the choosing. This is the first time that Viktor can truly say that he feels proud of himself. 

He will reach Harpers Ferry in a few days, barring unforeseen delays. He hasn’t said anything to Yuuri. Viktor has left the trail a handful of other times, to resupply, to sleep in a real bed for a night and wash his clothes. Each time, Yuuri had been upset. He had hidden it better, but Viktor could still feel it as a heaviness in the air, a tension in the leaves. He had even thought of telling Chris that he wanted to change their plans, that he would just take a break for a couple of days, not the week that they had been planning. When he checked in from the bunkhouse at Elkwallow, though, he had just confirmed the dates. He tells himself that it will be fine, that Yuuri will understand. He tells himself that he doesn’t need to ask permission of his ghost or of anyone else. He is looking forward to seeing his friend, to news of the world beyond the next ridge, to daily showers and to letting all of his blisters heal. Later, he will think that maybe he should have warned Yuuri, given him time to get used to the idea, but the time never seemed right. 

They cross the Shenandoah at what was probably dusk above the thick blanket of clouds. Yuuri stands beside him as they look over the wide river valley where the brown water follows its own trail to join the Potomac before losing its identity entirely in the Chesapeake Bay. The last trickle of Harpers Ferry’s rush hour stream across the highway beside them. 

“You’re going into town, right?” Yuuri asks, looking into the distance, toying with a patch of lichen growing near his elbow. Viktor tries not to stare. 

“Yeah.” 

“But you’ll be back soon, right?” 

“About that…” he glances over. Yuuri is staring at him, eyes dark. A wind has picked up. “I’m taking a break.” He swallows, and hugs his arms around his chest, suddenly chilled. “Just a week or so.” He looks back to the river, hoping that if he acts like it isn’t a big deal, Yuuri won’t be hurt. The light has taken on the faint greenish glow of an approaching storm and a sudden cool downdraft picks out goosebumps on his forearms. 

“No.” Yuuri’s voice is low but it vibrates in Viktor’s bones like thunder. 

Viktor can’t bring himself to look at Yuuri. He keeps his eyes on the river, white caps rising from the slow brown water as the wind continues to rise. 

“You can’t leave me like this. Not now.” His voice is rising with the wind, rumbling as if from a great distance. “I won’t let you leave me.” 

Viktor flinches, keeping his eyes on the toes of his boots, as rain stings at his cheeks and eyelids. He is afraid to look up, but he doesn’t know why. It is just Yuuri, his friend who just happens to be dead. Yuuri is a kind man who loves dogs and squirrels. When Viktor looks up from his toes, he understands the fear. The being in front of him bears little resemblance to his Yuuri. This is the Other thing. This is the force that animates Yuuri, that traps him on the trail. This is the life of the Woods, the rot and death and birth that live in the soil. This is the force that clings to every being that passes through the woods, drawing every body into itself, feeding on their death, on the scraps that they leave behind. This is the mycelia, the roots, the things that live and die and breed in the dark places. Viktor takes a step back and his foot hits the curb, ankle twisting. He wrenches himself back upright, but he overcorrects and the weight of his pack pulls him over. 

The squeal of tires on blacktop is an afterthought next to the horror he is fleeing, scrambling across the road, heedless of the cuts on his palms and the sudden shriek of a car horn. Viktor heaves himself to his feet on the other side of the road, trembling and sobbing. When he looks back, his Yuuri has returned, small and sad. “I'm sorry, Viktor. Just go. Please.” 

Viktor doesn’t know how he hears it over the rain and the sounds of the highway between them, but he doesn’t need to be told twice. He leaves the bridge as quickly as he is able. 

By the time he reaches the Harpers Ferry Visitor Center, it takes all of his strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The storm has dissipated as quickly as it had come on and the sounds of the night critters are steadily rising again. Viktor’s panic has subsided into exhaustion and a lingering queasiness. He is soaked to the bone and his pack has routed a stream of icy water down his spine. It is dark and Viktor has no idea when storm had turned into night. 

Th Visitor Center is deserted except for the Audi in the parking lot. As Viktor limps toward it, the dome light comes on, illuminating the car’s interior in hopeful gold. To his credit, Chris quickly dials his expression down from absolute horror to friendly concern as he rolls down his window. 

“My mountain friend, I don’t know where to bring you first: the hotel or the emergency room.” 

“The hotel.” 

He nods, pulling the latch for the trunk. “There’s a towel somewhere in there, my dear. I did just have her detailed!” Viktor obeys, using it to wring out his hair before spreading it over Chris’s passenger seat and lowering himself gingerly into the car. 

Viktor doesn’t do much for the next couple of days. Chris had arrived with the obvious intention of fretting over Viktor as much as possible, so he lets himself by shepherded to spa appointments and swanky restaurants. They hole up in the hotel room and Chris helps Viktor get caught up on all the Netflix and platonic chill he had missed. Chris tries to insist that Viktor shave his beard. He refuses. He likes being able to look in the mirror and see someone different than the man he left in New York. He isn’t sure that he’s ready to see himself exposed. He thinks it might be like checking on a souffle. Open the oven door at the wrong time, and the whole thing will collapse. He knows that he isn’t done, not yet. 

It takes him a bit to get used to being in town again. At first the light seems too bright and the traffic too loud. There’s a sense of unreality to it, a persistent feeling that he needs to get back to the trail, back to his real life. One the other hand, it is upsettingly easy to forget the last few months. Viktor finds himself falling back into old habits with a frightening ease. One night, Viktor looks at the clock and realises that he has spent the last four hours scrolling through Twitter, traumatizing himself with anti-immigration screeds from alt-light pundits, and obsessing over coverage of the burning Amazon and the most recent mass shooting. He uninstalls the app and puts his phone away, pithy 280 character responses itching at his fingertips. 

He can’t bring himself to tell Chris about Yuuri, not really. What could he say? ‘So, Chris, I know you’ve been worried about this trip, but I want you to know that it’s fine. The trail is haunted, but the ghosts likes me, or he did, except that maybe he tried to kill me.’ If he wants to return to the trail, he definitely can’t say that. 

On Viktor’s last night in Harpers Ferry, Chris takes him to dinner at the fanciest place he can find. It’s a winery a little way outside of town, the sort of place with gastriques and chermoulas on the menu. He can tell that Chris is disappointed when he orders the burger, but it must be okay because Chris ends up stealing half of his truffled duck-fat fries. Viktor retaliates by eating all of the raspberries off of the dessert plate. 

Over after dinner drinks, a brandy for Chris and an espresso for Viktor, he starts to tell ghost stories: not the true ones, the way that Yuuri looked at him sometimes, eyes full of stars and fog caught in his hair. Not the other truth, either, not the times that he has been afraid. Viktor tells the safe stories, the ones that he has heard from other campers. The person that you pass on the trail who is gone when you turn to look. The quiet hiker who sits in the corner of the shelter all night whom no one else can see. The voice calling your name in the middle of the night. 

Chris shudders theatrically at some stories but rolls his eyes and laughs at others. Viktor realizes that he would have done the same, just a few months ago. He understands that he can’t tell Chris any more. 

  


The next day he returns to the trail. There is no one waiting for him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a scene in which ghost!Yuuri becomes threatening and possessive when Viktor tells him that he plans to take a break from the trail.


	5. August:  O who will come and go with  me? Denson 128: Promised Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When I was...Before I… Before,” Yuuri says, his voice as soft as fog, “I was afraid. All the time, of everything. I came here because I had to. It was the way that I was going to prove to myself that I wasn’t weak, that I didn’t have to be afraid. I never thought that I could become something that people would be afraid of.” 
> 
> “I’m not afraid of you,” Viktor says. 
> 
> “I’m not sure that’s very smart.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I have any content warnings this time, but if you see something that needs to be tagged, please let me know.

The Trail feels different when he returns, as if a month of summer has passed in the week he was gone. Raspberry canes that had been heavy with fruit now hold only dry bundles of seeds for birds to fight over. The Trail has become crowded and the woods seem that way, too. There are nights that the song of the cicadas threatens to drown out the conversations at the shelter. He has become accustomed to the Trail. Strange sounds around his tent no longer wake him. He digs catholes with no more ceremony or disgust than he had once flushed a toilet. He eats his rehydrated hiker foods with as much enjoyment as the avocado toast that somehow failed to prevent him from buying his condo. He walks close to 15 miles every day, without batting an eye. He’s certain that he has acquired a tan line across his forehead from the bandana that he wears to keep the sweat out of his eyes and the thought somehow doesn’t bother him. 

He mingles more, now, starting conversations easily with the people he meets on the trail. They are people he never would have talked to before. He spends one night laughing himself sick with Lionheart and Ji Whiz, two students of Divinity at Vanderbilt who are hiking North to South. Lionheart has been carrying a ukulele since Maine and he and Ji Whiz serenade everyone in the shelter with Pete Seeger classics in close two part harmony. After a dozen iterations of the Green Grass Grew All Around, Viktor is genuinely concerned that he’ll piss himself laughing. He stands up to take care of the problem, squeezing past the loud Canadian and his dark-eyed girlfriend, no, his _fiancee_. They had both made a point of their engagement when they introduced themselves. 

The night feels different, quieter, with the warmth of song and friends behind him. He finds that he likes the sensation. It’s different from his usual solitude. The loneliness is made sharper, sweeter with its relief so close at hand. He empties his bladder behind a hemlock and when he steps out from beneath its branches he realizes how bright the moon is. There’s a breath of cool air on the back of his neck, as gentle and familiar as a kiss. He spins and searches the woods, fearful and hopeful all at once. 

“You okay?” Someone says from the direction of the shelter. 

There’s the snap of flint and the glow of the flame illuminates the speaker’s face in brief warmth as she lights a cigarette. He’d seen her around the shelter, an older woman, her short bleached hair tied up by a bandana. She’s seems familiar in some way that he can’t put his finger on. 

“Did you hear that?” Viktor lies. “I thought I heard an owl.” 

“Probably. There’s plenty of them around.” She gives him the sort of close look that always unnerves Viktor. He’s sure that she can see right through his bullshit. “You been out here long?” 

“Since May,” Viktor tells her. “I’ve never done anything like this before.” 

“Hell of a thing to pick for a first trip,” she takes a long inhale and looks at her cigarette thoughtfully. “Why did you decide to do this?” 

“It seemed like something I needed to do. Why are you here?” 

“Me?” She shrugs. “I used to do this every few years. It’s been a while since I’ve been out for so long, though.” 

Viktor’s good at telling when people are telling lies of omission. It comes of telling so many himself. “Why did you come back now?” 

“I lost someone.” She frowns a little, “Actually, I guess I’ve lost several someones. Coming out here seemed like the thing to do.” She looks at her cigarette again and stubs it out. “Seems like a waste, doesn’t it? I barely smoked any of it.” 

Viktor has a feeling she’s not really looking for his opinion, so he doesn’t say anything. 

“My wife, she hates it when I smoke. Hated, I mean. Said she didn’t want to lose me any sooner than she had to.” 

“I’m sorry.” It’s all Viktor can think to say, but it doesn’t seem like enough. It never does. 

“I think I’m gonna crash.” She looks into the forest behind Viktor. “You take care. We’re never really alone out here, you know?” 

The middle of August slides past all sweat-slick and buggy. The early days of his trip seem like a dream of fog and silence. There are crowds in the shelters at night with songs and stories and shared food. He starts to see some of the same northbound travelers every so often. Despite his best efforts, he acquires a trail name, an unfortunate souvenir of the time that Viktor managed to locate a yellow jacket nest by hammering a tent stake into it. He’d been in nothing but his shorts at the time, and the angry wasps had chased him half a mile down the trail. He’d escaped with only three stings and a new nickname: the Silver Streak. 

When Viktor had imagined the trip, he had pictured the mental challenge, the stunning vistas, the transcendental communion with Nature. He had never imagined himself having quite so much fun. 

There are days, many of them, in fact, when he is frankly miserable. There are times that his backpack chafes and his blisters pop and he’s lightheaded from the heat. There are times when he never wants to see another peanut butter tortilla or piece of jerky. Those days pale in comparison to the way to land streams past beneath his feet and the seasons march alongside him. There’s only one thing missing. 

He finds it again one morning. He wakes early from a strange dream that slips away the harder his mind tries to hold onto it. It’s barely light, but he can’t stand the thought of staying still, so he packs his things and starts walking. He feels as much as hears the sound of his own passage: the creak of his backpack, the brushing sound of his shorts, the huff of his breath. The birds should be awake by now and yet the woods remain silent. He catches a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye and stops. When he looks over, he doesn’t see anything. When he moves again, though, it is there, keeping pace with him. 

“Hello, Yuuri.” 

“Hi.” 

Yuuri walks with him until the sun is fully up and the day turns hot. He says nothing and disappears in a rush and clatter like the wind in dry leaves. When he’s gone the birdsong swells and crests over Viktor like a wave, leaving a hollow place beneath his ribs. 

Yuuri comes back with the sunset, bare feet hardly seeming to touch the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“It’s okay,” says Viktor. “I know that you wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose.” Viktor doesn’t actually know this. He thinks that Yuuri, the High School chemistry teacher with the family and the favorite color probably doesn’t want to hurt him, but that isn’t what Yuuri is anymore or, at least, that’s not all that Yuuri is. 

“When I was...Before I… Before,” Yuuri says, his voice as soft as fog, “I was afraid. All the time, of everything. I came here because I had to. It was the way that I was going to prove to myself that I wasn’t weak, that I didn’t have to be afraid. I never thought that I could become something that people would be afraid of.” 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Viktor says. 

“I’m not sure that’s very smart.” 

That night, Viktor can’t sleep. The moon is full, drowning the stars beside her and lighting the world with strange backwards shadows. He’s drawn from his tent by a desire that seems to come from somewhere beyond himself. He walks, the ground soft beneath his feet, through waist high grass that may as well be silk for how softly they brush against his bare legs. In the middle of the clearing, Yuuri is dancing, moonlight scattering from his fingertips like dew. He moves like wind, like fog, like snow on the mountain. He’s pale in the moonlight, his cheekbones sharp-carved shadows, his eyes deeper hollows in the night. His music is the whisper of an owl’s wing, the last cry of a rabbit, the childlike clamor of coyotes, ominous and inviting all at once. 

Yuuri sees him then and stops. In the space between one blink and the next, he is in front of Viktor, closer than he’s ever been. Viktor isn’t sure if he’s seeing the moon reflected in Yuuri’s eyes or if the light is coming from within. He knows that he should feel the heat of Yuuri’s body, hear the sound of his breath, but there is nothing. A whippoorwill cries, loud in the ringing silence. Yuuri turns to look, and Viktor can see a spring. Clear moonlit water carves a path down the mossy banks of Yuuri’s throat, disappearing beneath his flannel, now soft with mold and threaded with mycelia. 

“You should go, Viktor.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“It isn’t safe for you.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“Goodnight, Viktor,” Yuuri’s smile is sad. 

When Viktor wakes, his feet are bruised and bloody, his calves torn by the knife edges of the grass. Yuuri sits with him while he eats breakfast, scratching at the soft skin of his neck, shy in his brown boots and red flannel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm blown away by the support that this fic has gotten. I know that my stories tend to fall firmly into the "not for everyone" category, and I'm grateful that this one has found at least a small audience. Thank you so much for your kind words.


	6. September: Then to my ravished ear let one sweet song begin. Cooper  312: Sing to me of Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter of Spooks on Ice. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey: one more to go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the late posting. I hope it was worth the wait. see end notes for content warnings.

Viktor can feel the days getting shorter, the year getting older. It’s still the height of summer: hot and humid, the nights noisy with bugs and frogs and the days green and vigorous, but every now and then, he sees it in the way the light hits the leaves, or the way a branch snaps as a deer runs away. He feels it in the increasing mania of the squirrels and chipmunks. The summer is drawing toward its end and his journey with it. Soon it will be winter Viktor will return to New York, the city that will feel vastly emptier than the woods ever could. He won’t know how to face his empty apartment and his looming decisions. He will have to say goodbye to his journey and goodbye to Yuuri. 

He isn’t ready. 

Yuuri stays with him now. He’s there when Viktor wakes and walks with him until the mid-day sun drives him away. They talk, and sometimes Viktor forgets himself. He finds himself reaching toward Yuuri, thinking in terms of “we” when he imagines the future. He usually catches himself, but not always. 

One afternoon, somewhere in Southern Vermont, Viktor is bemoaning the packet of noodles that he is planning to eat for dinner. He never thought that he could crave salad so much. 

“I could eat a whole head of iceberg lettuce right now. I’m not even kidding.” 

“There are other kinds of lettuce?” Yuuri asks. 

Viktor gasps, “Yuuri! Of course there are other kinds of lettuce. There’s red leaf, green leaf, escarole, Boston, Bibb, Romaine: red and green, endives, arugula, rocket, frisee, mesclun…” 

Yuuri is laughing beside him, doubled over as if he still has breath to catch. 

Viktor pouts, “Yuuri,” he complains, “don’t laugh at me, this is very important.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Yuuri wheezes, his torso briefly losing itself to fog, despite the warm, dry day. The sort of thing happens more and more now, and Viktor thinks that he understands what it means. He finds it beautiful in its own way, even when a bare foot gives way to moss limned bones between steps. He knows that the forest is pulling Yuuri close, while Viktor can’t stop himself from pulling back. 

He says it without thinking, “I wish you could come home with me.” 

Yuuri freezes, all laughter stopped. 

“You could stay at my apartment, and in the morning, we could walk to the greenmarket, and then I would make you the biggest salad you’ve ever seen, with six, no, ten different kinds of lettuce, and radishes, and fresh snap peas…” 

“Viktor…” 

“That’s for the spring, though, this winter, I’ll take you skating, Rockefeller Center, just like in Home Alone 2, have you seen that movie? Donald Trump is in it, he’s president now, did you know? It’s better if you don’t, come to think of it,” he knows that he’s rambling, but he doesn’t care. Maybe if he does something, doesn’t do something, doesn’t look back, he can, what? Defeat death? Be Yuuri’s Orpheus, but without the tragic failure? He reaches for Yuuri, but his hands touch only air. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri is several steps away, his voice thick with tears but gentle as the breeze, arms wrapped around himself, “I can’t. You know that I can’t leave here.” He gestures with a hand that has become the shadow of a wing. “This place is what ties me to the world. If I leave it, I am nothing.” 

“Then I can stay,” a tear burns a hot path down Viktor’s cheek, surprising him. “It’s what you want, right? You didn’t want me to leave, before.” Viktor is surprised at himself, at the sudden terror that overtakes him at the thought of going home. “Well, I won’t leave, then. I’m nothing in the world anymore either. I’m only alive _here_. I’m only alive with you.” 

Yuuri shakes his head and keeps walking. “Come on. You shouldn’t make a decision because you’re afraid. We can talk about it when we get to Maine.” 

The next night, something wakes Viktor. It had happened all the time when he first set out, a rustle of leaves, the chatter of an owl. Now he can usually sleep through it all. Some sounds cut through sleep like a razor, though: an alarm clock, a ringing phone, the sound of one’s name. 

“Viktor…” Yuuri’s voice is thick with tears but gentle as the breeze. “Viktor…” 

Viktor sits up. It’s a dark night, no moon, no stars. Cloud cover had come in over the afternoon, and Yuuri had urged him to stop at the shelter a couple of miles ago, but Viktor had pressed on, and camped under a stand of hemlocks that had gathered shadows around themselves like a soothing blanket. Yuuri had seemed uncomfortable, talking about a clearing just a half-mile ahead, encouraging him onward, but Viktor had been suddenly tired, and had struggled to keep himself awake long enough to eat dinner. 

The darkness that had seemed so restful just a few hours ago feels suffocating, a weight that presses against Viktor’s eyes when he looks out of the flap of his tent and blunts the edges of the glare of his flashlight. He feels it as an almost physical resistance when he stands up in the somber night. It’s silent in a way the woods never are. He can hear no birds, no bugs, no frogs, not even the sigh of the breeze in the branches or the scuffle of larger animals. The clouds must have brought in the cool air. It raises gooseflesh on Viktor’s legs and forearms. 

“Yuuri?” He takes a step forward, the darkness reluctantly parting for him. “Where are you?” 

“Viktor…” 

He moves closer, and the darkness wraps itself tighter around his face. He shakes his flashlight as if that will help. 

“Viktor… Come on…” 

Something brushes against his hand, then fingers, cool and soft, entwine with his own, tugging him onward. Viktor gasps like he’s fallen into icy water, “Yuuri, what?” 

“Viktor!” A voice, very different from the soft and tear-stained lure snaps at him. It’s sharp and real and _behind_ him. The woods around him seem to inhale and Viktor can feel a million watchful eyes turn toward him. He feels awake again and afraid. Yuuri is beside him, his eyes holding all the stars that have left the sky. “Vitya. You need to go back to the trail. You need to get to the shelter as quickly as you can.” Yuuri’s face holds the moon and Viktor wants to look away from his brightness. When he does, Yuuri reaches out with a hand that is soft and warm, and tilts Viktor’s face toward his own. “Do you hear me, Vitya? You need to go, now.” 

The darkness is rising around him, the cold pulling at him and some part of Viktor wants to go with it, to surrender himself to the hungry ice that is already starting to burn in his veins. “My things…” 

“You can get them in the morning.” Yuuri’s voice is low and urgent when Viktor’s gaze flickers away. “Look at me, Viktor. Look only at me.” 

Viktor swallows a lump of the darkness. It tastes like death, and he hears Christophe’s voice in a burst of sudden memory, _Vitya, are you trying to die?_ he gags and spits and he knows, _No, I don’t want to die._

Yuuri is still speaking, low and urgent, “You have to go alone. Can you do it?” Viktor can’t breath, but he nods. “Okay.” Yuuri presses burning lips to his. “Okay,” he says again. “Go.” 

When Yuuri pulls away, he pulls his light with him. Screaming silence streams in his wake, jagged cold crying through the night, and Viktor is left reeling, stumbling. He gropes through the trees, unseeing in the dark, groping through rough branches, stones sharp beneath his feet. The cold tears at his lungs and the shadows paw at him, seeking sticky entrance anywhere they can. Viktor breaks free with a shout that is immediately swallowed by the stillness. 

He runs, he doesn’t know how long, legs heavy in the manner of dreams until, finally, he feels something different, a breath of air against his cheek. He lunges forward and feels the dirt and pebbles of the trail beneath his feet. The familiar sounds of the night rise around him, crickets and cicadas chirping their familiar harmony. The night is full of stars. 

He limps into the shelter, waking the young redhead bunked near the entrance. 

“Huh?” She blinks at him from her sleeping bag. 

“Sorry,” Viktor can’t bring himself to turn off his flashlight yet, but he has the presence of mind to aim it away from her as he takes a shaky seat on the stone steps of the shelter. It’s one of the older ones, all made of stone, like something out of a fairytale. He can see the familiar festoon of packs hanging from lines strung up between trees. Lifted to stay out of reach of bears. He shines his light back the way he came, but he sees only the familiar woods. 

“You okay?” She sits up and looks at him closer. “What happened to you?” 

Viktor fights down a giggle. 

“Mountain lion,” he eventually lies. She offers him a spare pair of socks and a blanket. In the morning, half the shelter escorts Viktor back to his campsite. Under the light of day, the grove of conifers stands benign, empty of the menace that had filled it the night before. He packs as quickly as he can, eager to be away from the place, while his new friends poke around watchfully. Of course, they find no sign of the animal. Viktor feels guilty for the wariness that he has spread to his new young friends, but he is too grateful for their companionship to argue. 

He stays with the group that day. The redhead, Multipass, distracts him with stories about her own wildlife encounters and doesn’t seem offended when Viktor lags behind, looking back along the trail. 

He keeps looking back, but the day stays bright and humid. That night, the half moon rises high and the friendly trees wear stars in their branches. There’s no trace of the stillness and shadow of last night. There is also no trace of Yuuri. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a brief and fairly oblique reference to suicide.


	7. October: Yet when I see that we must part, you draw like cords around my heart. Denson 62: Parting Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every journey comes to an end.
> 
> See end for notes.

October brings the collapse of summer. The air carries the tang of the oncoming winter and the trail is obscured by a riot of colorful leaves, and in the high places, there is snow on the ground. Viktor is drawing close to the 100 mile wilderness. It’s just a hop skip and jump from there to Mt. Katahdin. A hop skip and jump through the most isolated part of the trail and up a mountain, but still. 

He resupplies for the last time at Monson and sets off, decked out in blaze orange that’s only just brighter than the maple leaves. He hasn’t seen Yuuri since the hemlock grove. There are times that he worries. Has he somehow gotten lost again? Has Yuuri? Did something happen to Yuuri? _Can_ something happen to Yuuri? Was he ever real at all? 

Viktor doesn’t stray far from the Trail these days. The landscape has become more treacherous with snow and ice in the high places and miserable wetness everywhere else. The fallen leaves hide the trail and make every step a gamble. It’s worth it, though, he reminds himself as he watches the sun set, perched on a rock, his face cold in the open air. It’s worth it, he thinks as he crosses yet another wobbly bog bridge in yet another northern swamp. It’s worth it, he chants in the dark, when the dark and the cold lurk around his tent, repeating his name like a prayer. 

There are rivers in Maine. The map calls them creeks, but Viktor can’t see much difference when he’s halfway across one, fairly wide and shallow, his boots hanging around his neck and his bare feet slipping over rocks slimed with algae. It’s a pretty place: sparkly water under a sunny sky. The woods hang back from the shore. The trekking poles help, but he can feel his jaw tensing with the effort of keeping his balance. He takes another step and slides. His ankle twists painfully and his boot wedges itself between two rocks. He hissed in pain and tries to take another step. No luck, he’s stuck. He’ll have to take it off. He squats, cautiously. The last thing he needs is to soak his backpack. The rock shifts beneath his other foot and he freezes, catching his balance. It takes longer than it should. THe icy water makes his fingers clumsy, and the wet laces aren’t cooperative. Finally, though, he thinks he has it loose enough. He gives his foot a tentative wiggle. Yes, that should do. He straightens and pulls his foot from the boot, wincing as his ankle twinges. He’ll have to wrap that tonight. Now, for the boot. He certainly can’t abandon it. Damp boots are slightly better than no boots. 

VIktor bends over, careful of his backpack. The rocks beneath him shift and he flails, trying desperately to stay upright. It seems like he falls for a long time, every detail of the steep, tree-lined banks clear under the overcast sky: the moss of the banks, honey mushrooms trooping through the roots of the trees, puff balls ready to release their spores. He had been looking forward to that. He’s always enjoyed pressing the soft blobs to watch the little wafts of greenish spores blow away like fertile smoke. _Oh well,_ he thinks as he falls, _maybe another time._ It almost doesn’t hurt when his head hits the rocks. 

Viktor’s feet are cold. He has no idea how long he’s been standing in this river, wide and shallow, under a clear blue sky, his boots slung around his neck, dangling by their laces, the buckles of his waist and sternum straps undone for safety. Across the river, Yuuri is waiting for him. It will only take him six steps to reach the sandy shore, but Viktor is shaking so hard that he barely makes it. 

For a flash, Yuuri moves like he wants to touch Viktor, but he withdraws his hand. Viktor is almost relieved. He wants nothing more than to fall into Yuuri’s arms and the reminder of something he cannot have would be too much. He can feel the tightness of a sob clutching at the back of his throat. 

“There’s a nice spot a little way upstream,” Yuuri says. “Why don’t you take a rest there.” 

Viktor nods, not trusting his voice just yet. 

“I camped here when I was hiking. It hasn’t changed too much.” 

Yuuri, however, has changed. It’s easier to see the woods in him, now. His clothes hang tattered, stained tea-brown from fallen leaves while his shoulders hold bird nests and wood ears. His legs are little more than a lichen crusted bundle of twigs, the white of bone glinting through. Something twists in Viktor’s gut, not fear, not now. Whatever else may come, he’s nearing the end of his journey with Yuuri. 

“Is this where you, you know?” Viktor knows the answer as soon as he asks, his mind still ringing with the image of the steep mossy banks, the deceptively shallow stream, the rocks. 

Yuuri shakes his head. “We still have a day.” 

“What happens then?” 

“What should have always happened. You finish the trail. Without me.” 

“What if I don’t want to?” Viktor asks, suddenly stubborn. 

“Let’s sit down. Your feet must be cold.” 

They are, but Viktor hadn’t noticed. He obeys anyway, setting down his pack and choosing a smooth spot on a log. He looks at his feet for a moment, still pale with cold, the joints of his toes prominent and knobbly. He has long toes, the second toes significantly longer than his big toe. He has a sudden clear memory of his mother, of sitting on the floor with her as a teenager, holding their feet out in front of them, comparing. Her feet had been short, broad at the end. ‘Little paws,’ she had said. ‘You’ve definitely got your father’s feet.’ Viktor flexes his long toes in the sand. She hadn’t been wrong. 

Viktor should call her when he gets home. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Not really,” says Viktor, “But that’s not so bad. I’m trying to learn that I don’t always have to be okay.” 

Yuuri makes a little huffing sound. It’s probably a laugh. “I’m sorry, you know, for leaving you alone. And for following you around.” 

“Which one is it?” 

“Both, I guess. You came out here to find something. Most people do.” 

“I think I did find something, Yuuri.” 

“You know we have to end this.” 

“I know.” Viktor looks away. The dark comes so early now. The sun is dipping below the ridge to their west, turning the air cold and golden. When he looks straight ahead, he can see a couple of early stars. “I thought about staying, you know.” 

“How?” Yuuri asks. “Never mind. I know how.” He looks away. “I thought of keeping you. I thought about letting it take you, so you would stay with me. After that, I knew I should leave you alone. I had to come back, though.” 

“To say goodbye?” 

Yuuri nods. 

“I’m afraid, Yuuri. Or, I was. A lot of frightening things have happened to me out here, but it turns out that my own life is the thing that scares me the most. There were a few times that I thought that it might be easier, safer, if I never went home.” A laugh, unplanned, huffs out of him. “That’s probably a terrible thing to say to you. I sound like a terrible person.” He remembers a bad day, almost a year ago now. _Vitya, are you trying to die?_ There have been bad days in between, too. There were times when the answer to that question was a little more ambiguous, a little less confident. Today, though, it’s the same as it was then. _No, I don’t want to die._

Yuuri says, “You’ve changed. Since I first saw you, I mean.” 

“You’re right. You said I was looking for something, like you’d stopped me from finding it. I think what I found was me.” 

“How do you like you?” Yuuri flashes him a sudden grin and Viktor mourns again the future that he should have had. 

“The jury’s still out. We don’t know each other that well yet.” 

“You have your whole life to do that.” 

“I guess I do.” Viktor smiles, a little damply, at Yuuri. “Sounds almost like a proposal.” 

“Do you Viktor, take Viktor, to love and to hold?” Yuuri intones, solemn. 

“I do.” 

“There, see? Not so scary.” 

“You’re right. I’m not scared anymore. I’ll miss you, though. The city will feel lonely.” VIktor looks around at the trees and the sky. “I’ll miss all of this.” 

Viktor doesn’t sleep much that night. He drowses off mid sentence and continues the conversation into his dreams. He only knows they are dreams because he is lying on his back with his head cradled on Yuuri’s warm thighs while Yuuri plays with his hair and pokes gentle fun at his beard. When he wakes up, the loss of the dream punches the breath from his lungs. Yuuri watches quietly while Viktor dismantles his camp site. 

Finally he’s done. Viktor hefts his pack and looks around. Yuuri is ahead of him, already on the trail. He walks on ahead, just out of reach, as silent as he’d been the first day that he passed Viktor. He pauses at the crest of a ridge, and Viktor think he’ll be able to catch up, but when he trudges up the last switchback, Yuuri is ahead of him again, standing still on the trail. Viktor looks away, watching his footing. The path is steep, descending sharply. Even after all this time, Viktor is no naturalist. He usually relies on Yuuri to tell him what the plants around them are. He spots a button bush, though, and some sort of holly. There’s probably a stream at the bottom. 

When he dares to look away from the trail, Yuuri is nowhere to be seen. Viktor stops, panic welling up beneath his ribs. What if that was it? What if Yuuri is gone, no words, no goodbye, nothing to take with him into this frightening, unplanned future? 

No. He’s still there. To the right of the trail. Viktor can see it, a little deer path running gentle through the underbrush. He would follow anyway, just to see where it led, but he is drawn along, unquestioning. Yuuri is standing, as stone-still, facing him. Viktor follows and when he reaches the spot, Yuuri is gone, standing, watching, a little bit further away. 

Deer always know the best way to water. Their tracks are all over, pockmarking the ground around the small stream. It’s shallow but rocky, lined with steep mossy banks. There’s a log covered with puffballs. Viktor pokes one with an index finger and smiling as the spores smoke greenish out into the world. When he looks up, Yuuri is smiling a little bit, too. 

“I couldn’t resist,” Viktor explains. 

“I never could, either.” He looks far away and Viktor knows that whatever this is will end soon. “My sister used to tell me that the spores were toxic and mushrooms would grow in my lungs if I breathed them in.” 

“That sounds like something a sister would say.” Something clicks for Viktor then: a warning, a strange familiarity, and a barely smoked cigarette. _Actually, I’ve lost several someones._

“Do you think she’s still alive?” Yuuri asks, his voice starting to fray into the rough edges of the breeze. It’s getting cold. 

“I’m sure she is,” Viktor tells him. 

“It’s a shame, I never did get to Katahdin. I really wanted to finish.” 

“It’s okay. You did a really good job, Yuuri.” 

“Viktor? I think I’m ready to go.” 

“Okay. I’ll stay close.” 

“Thank you.” 

It is quiet for a long time, except for Viktor. He lets himself sob. He cries so easily these days. After a bit, his knees are cramping from the way he’d been crouched beside the creek, so he stands. He doesn’t know how long he’d been there. He picks his careful way over to where Yuuri had been. There isn’t much to see, not after so long. 

If you know what to look for, though, there’s something embedded in the mud that might have been a backpack. Viktor pulls at it and it comes apart in his hand, the fabric rotten away. There are some sturdier remnants, though, one of those old camping mugs, flecked with white. The enamel has chipped and the metal rusted through, a plastic tent peg. Viktor feels like he should take him with him, do something about it, keep something. 

There are no bones and Viktor is relieved. The forest has already taken care of that part of Yuuri. He leaves no trace, except for some footprints. No one will mind if he keeps thee memories. 

VIktor reaches the summit of Mt Katahdin on October 16th. He is happy in a simple and uncomplicated way that he can’t remember ever experiencing before. He knows that soon he will have to leave, that Chris is waiting for him at a bed and breakfast in Millinocket, that career choices and a neglected inbox await him at home, but right now, he is okay. He stays there for a long time. Only when he begins to get truly afraid of the thought of picking his way through a boulder field at twilight does he begin to make his way down the mountain. 

Even so, the world has gone dim and golden by the time he is back in lower, friendlier woods. He’ll camp in Baxter that night, then Christophe will pick him up. After that he doesn’t know what will happen, and for the first time in his life, the uncertainty fills him with excitement. 

His first step off the trail and onto a paved road feels like a beginning and an end all at once. Viktor looks back. There’s another person on the trail, stopped, like he’s waiting for something. Viktor sees what it is when a dog trots up next to him. The hiker bends down to ruffle her ears. They walk on, up the trail toward the mountain. Moving fast, no pack. 

Maybe Viktor will get a cat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming on this journey with me. This was a really exciting story to write and to share. Again, much thanks to SnarkyBreeze for proofreading assistance, Cupromantic for partnering with me on this bang, and everyone who screamed about ghost Yuuri with me. I hope the ending was at least somewhat satisfying. I'm working on updating Change of Seasons at the moment, then hopefully I'll have a new chapter of Who Wants to Live Forever. I'm also working on a collaboration that I've very excited about, so stay tuned for for news on that.
> 
> Content notes: This chapter contains a description (nothing graphic) of Yuuri's death.
> 
> If you've been wondering about the chapter titles, they are all lines from shape-note hymns, with the name of the hymnal they were taken from. Shape note singing is an early american system of writing and teaching music. There are still "singings" going on across the country (and around the world - one of the most well-known singings is in Cork, Ireland), and shape note is something that I am always happy to geek out about. Visit fasola.org if this sounds like something you'd be interested in.
> 
> reminder: there is a playlist for this fic! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xYqfjeg63OxgTCkitGon4 
> 
> "My dearest friends, in bonds of love,  
Our hearts in sweetest union prove;  
Your friendship's like a drawing band,  
Yet we must take the parting hand.  
Your presence sweet, your union dear,  
Your words delightful to my ear;  
And when I see that we must part,  
You draw like cords around my heart."

**Author's Note:**

> Things I should warn folks about: Viktor is a recovering alcoholic, and has a lot of feelings about that as well as memories of some bad days of drinking. Yuuri is already dead and haunting the Appalachian Trail, so there major character death but it predates the story. In later chapters there will be some more explicit references to his death. There's also a reference to a family member's death by suicide and references to loss of a spouse.


End file.
